Implosion
by blinkblink
Summary: Danny's apparent death leaves Five-O struggling to solve the murder without falling to pieces. Because every fandom needs a crazy stalker fic. Epilogue up.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Don't own the show or the characters.

Steve's never liked birthdays. Receiving gifts from his subordinates produces a deep-seated awkwardness – he knows they do it out of affection and respect, but when the gifts pile up on his desk he still can't help but feel like some sort of high priest receiving sacrifices from the less fortunate. Giving them is hardly any better, since it requires a keen memory not only for the gifts he's given the receiver but everyone else as well, to combat any appearance of favouritism. Needless to say, being blinded on his birthday a few years ago did nothing to improve his opinion of the occasion.

So, when Jenny reminds him as he leaves the office for the night that it's Danny's birthday next week, it doesn't exactly brighten his evening.

The fact that Danny's a friend as well as a colleague makes things somewhat easier. Or, more accurately, reduces the occasionally painful formality of the giving. Steve doesn't have to spend precious time trying to divine what Danny might like while maintaining absolute secrecy as to his thoughts; they've long since passed that reserved, arms-length office association. He can just ask.

Steve walks out of the Palace front doors into what passes for a cool evening in Honolulu, out of the corner of his eye, catches sight of a flash of familiar shade of olive green in the dusk. Slightly surprised at his luck, he veers off his course.

"Danno!"

Danny's just rounding the Palace corner towards the back parking lot, but he turns at Steve's hail and jogs back, keen and attentive. He might have just arrived at work, rather than leaving after a nine hour shift. "What's up, Steve?"

"Jenny just pointed out what next week is." At Danny's blank look, Steve elaborates: "Your birthday?"

Danny's confusion vanishes, replaced by a grin. "You mean the one day of the year _I_ come to a party _you_ throw."

"That's a bit too long to fit in my calendar, Danno."

"_And_ I'll be bringing a camera this year," continues Danny, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows conspiratorially. "I've got connections in the crime scene lab."

"So do I," says Steve, with mock severity. Danny's grin fades slightly, and he relents. "But as long as nothing threatens to end up on my desk, I might be able to look the other way." In the distance a car honks; Steve glances up and then back again. Evening rush hour is finishing, most commuters are at home eating dinner by now. "I've got to get going, Danny, but think about what you want, huh? And don't ask for scotch – you know Chin will end up getting some anyway." Chin Ho has bought scotch for every birthday in Five-O Steve can remember going back at least six years, except for Jenny's. He suspects one of Chin's multitude of cousins must be in the scotch importing business.

"Well," Danny shrugs, flushing just slightly in the twilight. "If you guys were all going to go in together…"

It's Steve's turn to raise his eyebrows. Danny grins, slightly embarrassed. "It's nothing huge or anything. I've just been having trouble with my watch, thought it might be time to get a new one. You know how often timing's important." He pulls up his sleeve to show his old watch, an expensive gold-plated one; Steve's remarked on it before as being above the price range of Danny's usual clothes. "I've had this one since college – graduation gift. Not that I need anything like this. Just something that keeps good time."

Steve nods. "Alright, Danno. I'll see what I can do." He slaps Danny's shoulder. "See you tomorrow. Bright and early."

"Yeah. Goodnight, Steve."

Steve runs down the stairs, fishing his keys out of his pocket as he crosses the street, and unlocks his car. He's leaving the office on time for once today, so it hasn't had time to cool from the short day's intense sun; the heat enfolds him like a thick blanket as he slides in, and he reaches up to loosen his tie. Starting the car, Steve rolls down his window as he pulls out onto the loop in front of the Palace.

He's just passed the side of the Palace when the explosion hits. Nothing in sight is on fire, but the sound is unmistakable – a low glass-shaking rumble overlaid by a sound like silk ripping. It comes from somewhere behind him. Steve slams on the breaks and turns so sharply the steering grinds in protest, then hits the gas again and flies around the corner.

He makes it just in time to see the final pieces of Danny's car hit the ground.

* * *

><p>They set up a 100-yard cordon around the parking lot behind the Palace, bringing out lamps and floodlights as full darkness falls over Honolulu. It takes the firemen more than an hour to put out the last of the blaze; the car burned with unquenchable hunger even after being drenched with water and Purple K. The smell of the whole thing is awful, a sickening mix of burnt metal, melted rubber and smoke. Chin watches it hit each new arrival at the scene: sees the disgust wash over their faces, only to be almost immediately overtaken by horror as they realise what it means. Steve, he knows, doesn't see it, because Steve isn't paying attention to anyone.<p>

Chin has worked with Steve for going on seven years now. He thought he'd seen Steve in every mood the man had, from unrestrained joy to unfettered rage and everything in between. But he's never seen Steve like this.

Chin was on his way home when the call came over the wire. He pulled a u-turn on the Kalanianaole highway as soon as he heard it, and made it back downtown without dropping below 40 the whole way. All that came over the radio was "Car bomb at 'Iolani Palace, officer down." But as soon as he pulled in and saw the flames billowing up over the space – the one beside his, the one Danny parked in today – he knew. And after the first white-hot pain, the fiery twist of grief and rage and guilt, his next thought was that when Steve got here there would be two fires to put out.

But Steve was already there, and there was no second fire.

Steve's just the same now as he was when Chin arrived. Chin's seen him brush off insults and blows and even armed attacks without ire. And he's seen him pummel men to the ground in a fury of rage, only barely holding the line. In all of Chin's experience, Steve either feels no anger, or doesn't bother to muzzle it. But as he strides back and forth under the harsh unnatural light, Chin can feel the suppressed rage rolling off him like acrid smoke from a volcano. His face is white with it, every snapping move he makes telegraphing it for a mile, so that everyone moves out of his way as soon as he even looks towards them. But when Steve speaks it's with calm courtesy, every remark relevant and well thought-out. He doesn't once shout, doesn't rebuke or threaten. He is visibly wrestling the rage down, holding it down with his steel-hard determination. It's just as clear that it's taking everything he has.

Chin has never seen Steve like this, but he knows what it means all the same. Knows that, above all else, Steve lives with a deep fear of corrupting the system, of crossing the line and letting his heart rule his head. And he knows that, as of 6:18 this afternoon, if Steve lets himself go there won't be enough water on the island to put out the fires.


	2. Chapter 1

For Steve, the evening seems to slide by in a grey, featureless blur – the only vividness comes from the thoughts inside his head, and they are bright primary colours, so primitive as to be blinding. He knows time must be passing, but when he glances at his watch the tiny hands impart no meaning to him, and any mention of the hour skims right over him.

It's only when he's sitting alone in his office, listening to the distant tower clocks striking eleven, that he finally kicks back entirely into the here and now. Listening to the peals, he isn't sure whether to be surprised that it's so early, or that it's so late. It's the most immaterial question he's conceived of all evening, but it's the first one he's been able to focus his full attention on. Probably because it has nothing to do with arson, or motive, or Danny – Steve stands abruptly, derailing the host of emotions threatening to crush him. He paces, using the distraction of movement to keep his thoughts from veering off the narrow path of the investigation.

Facts he doesn't remember being told are pinned together neatly in his memory, carefully recorded for all that they went unnoticed at the time they were received, and he pulls them out now to review. No trace so far of wiring into the ignition or door handle. Accelerant definitely used, but nothing professional. No history of car bombing in any of Five-O's open cases or those going back 3 months. No witnesses. No immediate clues.

The car is in forensics now, was towed there under Che's direction as soon as it was cool enough to move. The blackened, charred form was still curled behind the wheel, jerking as the car bumped – Steve fists his hands in his hair and twists, eyes closed so tight he sees stars. It's not enough to wipe out the memory, to erase his thoughts, and he hears a choked cry escape from his throat.

Storming to his sideboard, Steve yanks the doors open and grabs the bottle of whisky from the bottom shelf. The first swallow he takes straight from the bottle, throat tight and burning. He pours the second into a glass so hastily he spills some of the amber liquid down the side. Gritting his teeth, he shoves the bottle back into the sideboard, slams the door shut behind it, and goes to turn out the light.

It won't dull his thoughts, but at least he won't have to stare at a room laced with memories. It might just be enough to let him do what he has to without looking reality in the face.

* * *

><p>It's been dusk for a long time. He's been lying here at least that long, as long as a piece of string, as long as the itch in his side has gone unscratched. When he moves, a chime in the distance jingles lightly. He rolls over slowly once, twice, with his head twisted backwards to hear it better, but somehow now he can't move further. He moans and tries to get to his feet, but he's trapped, all knotted against himself in a tangle he can't unravel.<p>

Daylight appears out of nowhere, blinding him as it pours down on him from above so that he flinches away from it. Someone's speaking, low and tender, the sound buzzing like a fly in his ears.

"Aw, Danny, what're you doing? Here, c'mon." The chime rings again as hands on his shoulder roll him out like dough, sun rising and dipping sickeningly in the sky above. "There you go. You just lie still now, and don't fret yourself. There ain't nothing to worry about. You're safe now. I'm gonna look after you."

Danny blinks up at the blur leaning over him, eclipsing the light. "Wha?" The inside of his mouth is dry and gummy, like the back of a stamp. He licks at it, and then at his lips, all hard and peeling.

"I got you away from him," says the voice, a river of words that have barely any meaning. "You don't have to worry about him anymore. I took care of everything. You just close your eyes and rest."

A hot hand presses him down, down, down into the soft embrace of the mattress. Some petulant thought in the back of his mind complains at there being a mattress outside, but the dregs of Danny's consciousness are already slipping away.

* * *

><p>Every cop knows there are nights that define a Force. Nights that will become part of its living memory, become one of the stories that are told years and even decades later over drinks. Some of them are nights everyone wants to be on duty because they can sense history unfolding, scent the excitement in the air. And some are nights when everyone <em>has<em> to be on duty, because what unites them isn't excitement but something much darker that smoulders like lava beneath their skin, and they can't rest until they've locked it away.

Ben is new to Five-O, but he's an old cop. He's known Danny for a year, but he's known about him for much longer, just like everyone on the Force knows about him. Young, honest and fearless; the only cop on in the state who can keep up with McGarrett – and who McGarrett lets keep up with him.

Even without McGarrett's good opinion, Danny would have been popular. With it, he's a hero. And there's not a cop on this rock who will let a hero die without bringing his killer to justice.

Like every other man on the Force, Ben knows this is a night that will define HPD. The night so many off-duty cops came in that the stations were standing room only; the night the mobsters shut down all the brothels and the gambling joints and pulled their men off the street to get the hell out of the line of fire; the night Steve McGarrett personally got on the wire and told the entirety of HPD not to do anything stupid in so many words before cutting curtly out, and then proceeded to flatly ignore three calls from the Governor.

Ben, along with the rest of Five-O, gets called in by McGarrett around one in the morning and told to go home. And, like the rest of Five-O, he promptly returns to his desk and takes up where he left off. He's been there ever since.

One day, this will be a night everyone talks about. But right now, with the smell of smoke in his clothes and ash on his hands, all that matters is finding the son of a bitch who set that bomb and showing him just how much heat he's turned on himself. Enough to burn a man alive.

* * *

><p>Danny stares at the ceiling for a long time without any ability to recognize it for what it is. When his brain suddenly does start, it's not for any apparent reason. He just blinks, and knows the beige blur above him is a ceiling.<p>

His memory is all smeared and melted together, impressions and facts and hallucinations running together in a sticky mess, so that he can't make much sense of it. He remembers being outside, remembers the sun glaring down at him, but he's not sure whether that actually happened or not. He's been on enough heavy pain meds to know the feeling.

If he was ever outside, Danny isn't now. He's lying in his shirtsleeves on a futon on the floor of a small room, and although his vision's still fuzzy at the edges he estimates it's not more than six yards across. It's a cheap, undecorated room with one window covered on the inside with some sort of yellowed opaque plastic that prevents him seeing what's outside and reduces the light flooding in to dim candlelight levels. There's a round ceiling light above, but it's off. On the wall to his left there's a closed door, while straight across from him is a partially open one with a linoleum floor and the corner of a sink visible. And that's it. Except for the chain.

Danny's woken up in places he doesn't remember getting to before, and he's woken up drugged to the gills. It's not until he tries to sit up and his wrists catch sharply that fear really cuts into his chest.

In the wall over his head, a heavy metal bolt has been screwed into the wall. From it hangs a chain, the kind used to harness junk yard dogs to their kennels. A small section of it is coiled like a silver snake on the futon beside his head; the other end runs out, over his stomach and loops around the chain of the handcuffs.

Handcuffs. Danny stares down at them, while his mind scrambles to come up with some reason, any reason, that things wouldn't be just what they seem. That add up to an explanation other than kidnapped, drugged, hostage. But there's no way to make that math work. Breathing hard now, his vision blurring, Danny twists his wrists against the metal. He jerks at the cuffs as sharply as he can bear, trying in vain to find a weakness in them. They clatter relentlessly, louder and louder as he fights with increasing franticness –

On the other side of the room something creaks. Danny stops and looks up, breathing hard. His head is spinning, but the sharp pressure against his wrists helps to keep him focused. The door eases open, revealing a slice of brilliant white light. It's too bright – his eyes water, and he's forced to look away. He hears someone hurry over – heavy, ungainly footsteps – and he shies away.

"Hey, Danny, it's alright. Don't worry, man, I'm here to help you." It's a young man's voice, trying to be soothing but with an unmistakable undercurrent of nervousness. "I've got something here that'll help you." His silhouette, as it approaches in the bright shaft of light, is large but ungainly. Overlarge clothes and a stooped gangling appearance, reminiscent of a duckling. But the thin tube in his hand is much less innocuous – even with blurred vision, Danny can recognize it for what it is. He scrambles away across the futon, moving awkwardly with his hands trapped together in front of him, until the chain catches him up.

"Look – let's talk about this," Danny tries to keep his tone clear and reasonable, to make eye contact with the shadowy figure. "I don't know who you are, but I'm sure we can work this all out."

"You're right, Danny. We can – and we will. That's why I brought you here – to help you. But you're not ready, yet. You're still under his control. You've got to break away from him."

"Him?" Danny's eyes are adjusting now, and he can see the man now kneeling in front of him. Mid-twenties, with a plain, earnest face overshadowed by a badly cut mop of brown hair. He's got more weight than Danny credited him for at first, but his clothes are definitely a few sizes too big. He frowns at Danny's interjection.

"We don't need to talk about him. All you have to do is forget him. I'll help you to – promise. I know you're a good guy. I _know_ you are."

Danny doesn't find his face familiar, but his conviction suggests that he, at least, knows Danny. Or thinks he does.

"Thanks, uh …?"

"Hank. It's okay you don't remember – I know how much he puts you down. He puts everybody down – doesn't listen to what people tell him, doesn't listen at all." Hank is almost muttering, and Danny tries to judge the distance to his hand and the syringe in his grasp. "But I knew you were different," he says, and looks up. "You tried to help Mattie. You listened. You believed in him – you didn't spread those lies like him."

Danny wracks his memory for a Mattie, and finds nothing. He can't think properly, can't organize his thoughts into coherent categories. Everything keeps blurring, lines bleeding into each other like rivers into the ocean, and he comes up blank.

"That's right, Hank. You're right. McGarrett –" he sees the flinch, and corrects himself – "_he_ does put people down. Tells us how to think, what to do. You don't have to tell me; I've been working for him for five years. Everyone knows about him, we just do our best to work around it. I appreciate you bringing me here, looking out for me – I do. But you don't have to; I'm already convinced, man." He smiles, forces himself to relax his stiff muscles. Hank thinks about it, and then slowly shakes his head.

"Uh uh. That's him talking. I can hear him, he's in your head. It's not your fault, I know you don't want to do it." He moves forward, raising the syringe. Danny backs away, and hits the wall.

"Hank, stop, this isn't the way, this isn't going to help me –" he makes a grab for Hank's arm, and Hank moves to kneel on the chain connecting the handcuffs. It drives Danny down into the mattress, pinning him there so tight that he can feel the first stabs of pain through the haze of drugs. Then there's a prick in his arm, and everything gets a lot hazier.

* * *

><p>Steve is forcing himself to drink coffee when the lab report comes in. He doesn't want to drink it – doesn't want to drink or eat or do any of the things that remind him he's a man before a cop – but he can't function without it, and stepping down is not acceptable.<p>

He skims through the report before calling in Chin and Ben, standing to relieve some of the antsy pain at the bottom of his spine.

"Che's report on the car is in," Steve tells them, as they close the door and gather at the bulletin board. There's a plan of the parking lot with the car marked on it, some crime scene photos, and a list of Five-O's recent cases. No victim picture or profile. "Bomb was set under the driver's seat; probably very simple. Remote controlled detonation, and ethanol used as the accelerant; Che says the quantity wasn't enough to require a bulk order. Not much to go on." He turns to Chin. "Follow up with Che about the remote detonation system. There may be something there we can narrow down."

Chin nods curtly. "Right, Boss."

Steve turns to Ben, who has a folder under his arm. "Ben?"

"Nothing like this in any of our cases going back six months: no pyros, no bombers."

"What about Merryweather?" asks Steve, naming Five-O's most recent bombing suspect

"He's on the mainland, doing time in Oregon for assault. I had HPD's Major Crimes run down the profiles of anyone in the system with a history of car bombing – they're reviewing the files now."

"That's gonna take some time," says Chin, with a sceptical frown.

"They've got a lot of help," replies Ben, grimly. "Ain't no one taking this lying down."

It's Steve's turn to frown. "Keep an eye on them. You think anyone's getting too hot, you tell them to cool their jets, Ben. Kick 'em off the case if you have to. This whole place is a gunpowder factory right now – we don't need any matches." He speaks sharply, barking the words out like a sergeant-major, and ignores the looks Ben and Chin give him. "Well?" he prompts, when they don't move immediately; they nod and hurry out.

Steve crosses to the coat rack and picks up his suit jacket. He slips it on as he leaves his office, just in time to see Ben and Chin heading out of the main office door. "I'll be gone for an hour, Jenny," he tells her as he passes; her eyes are red, although with tears or tiredness, he can't tell. "If it's urgent, you can get me at the Williams'."

Jenny gives him a small, sympathetic nod. "Yes, sir."

* * *

><p>Steve hasn't seen Danny's parents in nearly a year. He should have been the one to deliver the news last night, not some HPD uniform, but the wound was far too raw then to take the clawing. It's still too raw now, he knows, but he can't put it off any longer. Not as Danny's friend and superior, and not as the man in charge of investigating his murder.<p>

Danny's parents live in Eastern Honolulu out towards Hanauma Bay, in a small house backing directly onto a steep rock face with a front yard the approximate size of a closet. Danny's mother Irene, Steve knows, is an avid gardener and has made full and inventive use of the cramped space. Tall trellises have been attached to the house, covered in bougainvillea, clematises, and honeysuckle. Rather than wasting precious space on grass, the yard has been divided by scalloped rock walls into different sections featuring different miniature themes: a desert with cacti and succulents, an English garden with pansies and poppies, a lush Hawaiian jungle of plumeria and orchids. A careful stone pathway has been woven between these miniature ecosystems; it was Danny who did most of the heavy labour involved some years ago, Steve remembers. He had come to work complaining of back problems for a week.

Steve's heart thrums uncomfortably as he follows the path now, sweat gathering under his collar in the hot morning sun. He feels slightly ill, and tries to calculate how much water he's drunk in the past twelve hours, whether he might be suffering from dehydration. Anything to prolong having to prepare for the conversation waiting for him on the other side of the door. But the path is a short one, and even taking small steps his long legs cover it all too quickly.

Steve reaches up to press the doorbell, and hears the knob turn before he touches it. It leaves him with no time to think before it opens, revealing Danny's father in the dark space beyond.

Rob Williams was most likely never a very tall man, judging by his son's stature. But osteoporosis has worn him down, like a stone in a sander, so that he now stands no taller than 5'5 with a permanently stooping back. Originally an auto mechanic, Rob was drafted and trained to run sonar in submarines in the War. After he was demobbed, he went right back to working on cars and never mentioned his service record – Danny didn't even know he'd served until he was in his twenties. But as Steve looks down at the withered man in the doorway, the soldier in him is unmistakable. He stands at stiff attention, and stares back at Steve with rage, and sorrow, and an immeasurable burden of guilt in his eyes.

"Come in, Steve," he says after a few seconds, gruffly, and shuffles back from the door. Steve does, shutting it behind him and slowing his strides to follow Rob into the tiny living room.

Irene, much younger and more vivacious in appearance than her husband, rises from a hard-backed chair to meet him. The grief is painted much more clearly on her face – she hasn't bothered with make-up, and her eyes are red and bloodshot. But she comes over with a very shaky smile to press Steve's hands. Steve's impression of her has always been of a quiet woman smelling of verbena, invariably polite and attentive but never revealing very much of her thoughts. She lives up to it now.

"Steve," she says in a low tone, releasing his hands from her soft grip. "Thank you for coming. Please, sit." She indicates the sofa across from the chair she was seated in; he crosses to it as she retakes her seat and Rob slouches into a high well-stuffed easy chair.

"I can't say," he begins slowly, finding himself suddenly unable to speak the rote phrases he's used so often, but equally unable to conceive of anything that could describe the crushing feeling in his chest, "how much I …" His throat closes traitorously; he clears it and changes tacks to finish weakly, "how sorry I am for your loss."

"In this home you're Danny's friend, Steve, not his boss," says Irene, shifting with a whisper of well-starched cotton. "I hope you can believe that?"

He nods, and takes a breath. The extra oxygen helps his focus, and he continues with considerably more composure. "Thank you. As Danny's friend, I'm here to tell you he will be missed – deeply. By myself, and by the rest of Five-O." He sees a small, sad smile flicker across Irene's face and sees Rob's hands twitch, and pauses before continuing in a lower voice. "But as his boss, I have to ask you a few questions."

Irene nods gently; Rob remains sitting stiffly.

"We are looking through all Danny's cases, looking at anyone he might have met through work who could be targeting him. But was there anyone in his personal life who had a grudge? It's more likely to be someone recent, but it could be someone who's just come to Hawaii. Anyone important he mentioned who was angry with him."

It feels ridiculous to be asking these questions of Danny. Like some sort of sick joke, or a bizarre parody of real life. But thinking like that – treating this like an exercise, like a senseless completion of routine – makes it much easier. Makes it doable.

Irene shakes her head. "We don't see Danny very often, Steve. Not more than monthly, really, if that. I'm sure he would tell you more about his personal life than us. Passing flames, short acquaintances, we never hear about. And there hasn't been anyone serious in months, as far as we know."

Steve nods – it agrees with his own personal knowledge. "Did he mention being worried about anything from work? Something he might not tell us? Someone he didn't want to gossip about at work, maybe, or something he didn't want us to think he was concerned about?"

Irene begins to answer, but Rob shifts and she falls silent and turns to watch him. "That boy grew up too kind," he says, in a creaking voice without recrimination; just a kind of disbelieving regret. He turns to stare at Steve with hard eyes blue as the Pacific – blue as Danny's were.

"You think he'd tell his folks anything that'd trouble them? Not him. The day he shot that boy – the one that was in all the papers, with all those fool reporters saying he was trigger-happy – was the day he stopped talking about his work. D'you think he ever stopped to think about who he was trying to look after – a pair who lived through the Depression, and Pearl, and the War? Not him. He got it into his head that his world was too distressing for us old folks, and clammed up. He'd talk about office-work, and his pals, and that was it." Rob shakes his head; on his knees, his hands fist tight.

"And I let him. God help me. Shooting at criminals with guns, who fired on him? In the War we sank dozens of merchant ships – hundreds of lives – and they never even saw us coming. We used to keep tallies on the walls, try to estimate crew sizes, and try to top each other's scores in port. You think I ever told him that? No – I let him live alone with his pain, to spare myself." The old soldier's shoulders are shaking, his voice breaking, and he turns away. Irene stands and moves to stand beside him, one hand over her mouth, the other reaching out to him. He bats her hand away with his, but she catches it all the same and holds it. Steve looks away and rises to go, throat burning as if coated in raw alcohol. He can't play this game anymore. Can't pretend this is anything but what it is. Can't lock out the fact that the loss that's drowning this couple is pulling him down too, salt thick and choking in his throat.

"Steve," says Irene, with a steel that makes him turn and try to focus. "Can someone else run this case?"

Steve blinks, blindsided. "You're concerned I won't close it?" he asks, more confused than surprised.

The older woman gives a small, sad shake of her head. "Oh, no. I'm sure you will. I'm sure you'll pour everything into it. But by all accounts, you do that in the ordinary course of things, and I'm sure you can't treat this as an ordinary case." Irene's eyes soften as he tenses, but she continues in the same matter-of-fact voice.

"You can't give more than you have, Steve, although from the looks of you you've been trying. I'm afraid to see what will happen if you keep trying."

Steve is suddenly conscious of his wrinkled shirt, his uncombed hair, and the exhaustion that must be showing on his face.

Irene pulls Rob's hand to rest against her hip, and gives him an earnest look from eyes just as haunted as her husband's. "Steve, we've already lost our son. We don't want to lose you as well."

"I understand," he says, moving towards the door. The room feels stifling, air close and stuffy, and he needs to get out. "But this is my responsibility – my job, and my duty as a commander and a friend."

"And is it what Danny would want?" she asks, as he puts his hand on the doorknob.

He shakes his head in voiceless protest of the question, and leaves without answering.

* * *

><p>Danny spends a lot of time listening to a low humming, like the police chopper circling overhead. Sometimes it switches gears, rising higher or lower, but it is always there on the edge of his consciousness. It's not until awareness bleeds back in that he identifies it as a voice rather than an engine, a man's voice speaking to him from somewhere nearby. And it's not until a cold rush of adrenaline slices a path through his disorientation for rational thought that he knows it's Hank, sitting beside him on the futon droning on in a one-sided conversation.<p>

"…All the time, I watched him, and he never saw me. I went everywhere, watched him boss you around in his office, on the streets, in his car. He never listened – never listened to anything anyone said – not me, not you. But he didn't ever see me. I was always the best watcher; Mattie always said so. I watched out for him – just like for you. I never let anyone in here when he was high. So don't you worry, I won't let them find you, either. Won't let them tell lies about you, like he did. He lied about _everything_ – didn't even listen, not to anything. It _wasn't_ Mattie's fault, he made that all up. But I know you know that. I know you tried to tell him. That's why I'm gonna look after you, now that Mattie's gone."

Danny rolls over heavily onto his back, chain digging into his hip. "Thanks, Hank," he slurs, trying to focus properly on Hank's face and finding it impossible. "Told you before; I appreciate it. You must be a real good watcher."

"That's right," says Hank, proudly. "No one ever sees me. Not even him."

"Makes me feel better – like I can trust you."

"You can – I'm doing this for you, Danny!"

"Because I helped Mattie," says Danny in soft agreement, like it's a fact rather than a wild guess. Hank pauses, but nods slowly; Danny takes a deep breath and forces himself not to push for more information.

"Then d'you think you could trust me? Just a little. There's a bathroom over there, but I can't make it that far." He rattles the chain; it might be two yards long, if that.

Hank glances at the bathroom, then stands and leaves the room. He's gone for less than a minute; when he returns he's got another length of chain in his hands, a much longer one. He wraps it around the bolt, padlocks it on, and then attaches the other end to the handcuffs. Only when that's done does he unlock the shorter chain and pull it away.

It takes Danny a couple of tries to get to his feet, and once he's there he sways dizzyingly before finding a semblance of balance. His nerves still feel slightly deadened by the drugs, and his sense of where his limbs are is off enough that he trips over his feet a couple of times. But he makes it without any major mishaps. The door, he finds, is jammed into a permanently open position by a screw in the floor. He tries to ignore it.

When he trudges back into the room, Hank is standing near the bed, watching him. He's holding a glass of water in his hand, and offers it to Danny. "Here. Thought you'd be thirsty."

Danny hasn't had anything to eat or drink since yesterday, and at the sight of the water he's made suddenly very aware of the dryness in his throat. He takes the glass cautiously and sips at it. It's warm, but otherwise delicious, and before he can think of stopping he's gulped down every drop of water. Finished, he looks up to give the empty glass back to Hank, and sees the syringe in his hand. But by then, Hank has caught hold of his wrist.

"Sorry, Danny. But you're still not ready. I can see him – he's still there, looking out of your eyes."

Then the prick, followed by rationality gradually slipping away.

TBC


	3. Chapter 2

HPD rounds up suspects in waves, bringing them in for questioning by Chin and Ben down in the interrogation rooms. Chin has met most of them, and the rest he knows of – only big fish and fools play with explosives, and the fools don't last long. It would have been more politic to run the interviews in the field, but no one feels like pandering to politeness. And, to their credit, the crooks are smart enough not to push. Chin would bet a month's wages that crime has dropped like a stone across Honolulu since last night – no one's sticking his head above the line for fear it will be shot off.

Chin takes the interviews slow and easy – big time boys like these exude more slime than a bucket of mud worms, and once you let them get under your collar you won't ever get your cool back again. But hard as he's looking for any sign of fear or guilt, any tiny flash of weakness, he sees nothing in any of his four guys. He releases them reluctantly one by one to slither off to their dens, and when the fourth one is gone, sits in the empty interrogation room making quick notes on each unproductive interview.

The interrogation rooms have thick cement walls to ensure no sound leaks from room to room, but no particular effort was made to stop noise filtering in from the corridor. Chin is used to tuning it out, but as he sits writing, he slowly becomes conscious of an escalating fracas in the hall. Frowning at the distraction, he tucks his notebook away in his jacket and goes to leave – he can finish up at the Palace.

Chin opens the doorway, just in time to catch a reeling man dressed in slacks and a loud aloha shirt, holding the side of his face. Dave Kinomoto, a punk with a long rap sheet for petty crimes – and a longer list of unsubstantiated and considerably more serious allegations to his name which no one here has any doubt about.

People are shouting from all sides all at once, and it takes a second for Chin to process exactly what's going on. The man he just caught hops out of his arms and scrambles back down the corridor towards the main stairs, expression somewhere between angry and terrified. His right eye is in the early stages of blossoming into what's sure to be a beautiful shiner. "Hey, man, he's _pupule_ – you keep him away from me! You just keep him the hell away!" He's pointing towards the scrum at the other end of the hall, and Chin turns to follow his finger.

At the other end of the hall, being dragged backwards by two of HPD's larger beat cops, is Ben. He's fighting hard, face dark and twisted in fury and despite the fact that the two uniforms have easily fifty pounds on him each, they don't have it all their own way. "You snot-nosed little son of a bitch, you think that slick smile'll get you out of this? This has got your signature all over it – how smart is that? You think we can't put two and two together? Think I don't see the fear in your eyes? I'm gonna nail your skull to the wall for this one!"

Chin hurries forward to lend his weight to forcibly marching Ben down the hall in the opposite direction. He doesn't stop struggling until they get around the corner, where the two uniforms pin him up against the wall. The fight finally drains out of him and he falls silent, jerking himself free when the HPD cops loosen their grips. Ben turns away to comb his hair back into place with his fingers as the crowd disperses slowly, ignoring them all. He's cursing under his breath, and as the last of the cops trickle away around the corner, he kicks out hard at the wall. "_Goddammit_."

Chin lays a restraining hand on his shoulder, and he shrugsaway. "I'm okay."

"Sure," agrees Chin mildly. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

If they're lucky, maybe Steve won't hear about it for a couple of days.

* * *

><p>They aren't lucky.<p>

It's obvious from the minute they walk into the office that something's up. The look Jenny gives them is more than enough warning. "The boss wants to see you," she says quietly, in the kind of tone used to offer last cigarettes. Ben grimaces and marches forward. Chin takes a deep breath and follows.

Steve's standing with his back to the door when they enter, staring out the window behind his desk. When he speaks, it's with deceptive calmness.

"I had a call from HPD a few minutes ago. Apparently Dave Kinomoto's threatening to press charges. Police brutality. Seems in the course of his visit to the interrogation room he spontaneously developed a black eye."

Ben opens his mouth to respond, but he doesn't get the chance. Steve swivels, and slams his hands down on his desk so hard the phone rattles. "_No hotheads_, I said. And five hours later, I find my own detective beating up suspects in the station house. That is far beyond unacceptable!"

Chin tenses with the effort of not stepping backwards in the face of his boss's rage. He's used to seeing Steve hollow-cheeked and pale-faced after gruelling 30-hour shifts, and he's used to Steve's occasionally scalding outbursts. But Steve is riding dangerously close to the breaking point now; Chin can see the sweat beading along his hairline and the twitching muscle under his eye.

"We're front and centre under the press's microscope right now. If they get one whiff – _one whiff_ – that the cops've been leaning on helpful citizens who _voluntarily_ came in to be interviewed, what do you think will happen?"

"Helpful citizens – Steve, the guy's slime!" Ben steps forward, gesturing angrily. "He's behind the parkade bomb last summer that almost killed that kid – you and I both know it."

"Maybe, but we have no solid evidence of that. He's never been accused of that crime, which means in the eyes of the law – and the press – he is an innocent citizen cooperating with the police."

"You're saying I should've just sat there politely and listened while he gloated over Danny's death? 'Poor little piggy, was the luau too hot for him'? He reeks of this one, Steve!"

"I'm saying," snarls Steve, leaning low over his desk, "that you _never_ strike a suspect. You _do not lose your cool_."

"So we should all just play like you, and pretend we don't care that Danny _burnt to death_ in that parking lot yesterday? We should just shake hands with his murderer?"

Chin grabs his shoulder and pulls him back. "That's enough, Ben. Come on."

Ben shakes him off with an angry jerk and steps forward. "No, it's not enough. I want to hear him say it. You haven't once said it, haven't admitted it, even to yourself, have you? You just keep pretending like this is any case, like it's some kind of routine. But _it isn't_. Your second in command – your best friend – is down in forensics, because they haven't been able to separate him from his car to get him to the morgue! Danno is _dead_, Steve. And ain't no one but you trying to forget it!"

For an instant a wave of some unreadable emotion washes over Steve's face, and Chin feels himself tensing with the age-old instinct of prey under the eyes of a predator. And then it resolves into white-faced rage, Steve's hands tensing into claws with the effort of not striking out at the items on top of his desk.

"Get out," hisses Steve, furiously.

Ben pauses, but Chin grabs him again and doesn't let him get away this time. He swivels the newest member of Five-O around and pushes him out the door, before he can provoke Steve into a full explosion.

* * *

><p>Jenny waits a good half hour after Chin and Ben come tearing out of the office, their faces showing uneven mixes of rage, pain and guilt. While she didn't hear the words, the tone of the conversation with the boss was unmistakable – like everyone else, she can feel the tension rising to the boiling point, its heat only increased by Steve's absolute refusal to acknowledge its existence. Or the reason for its existence.<p>

The office is absolutely silent after the detectives' departure; Steve makes no calls or requests for coffee. Jenny goes on typing, but as each minute ticks by on the ancient wall clock she feels herself growing tenser, her stomach twisting itself into knots. She stops typing to listen, and still hears nothing. Not even Steve pacing, like he did all morning. Biting her lip, she picks up the phone and orders a delivery of Chinese from across the street.

Jenny only gets through one more page before it arrives, too jumpy to concentrate on the shorthand notes in front of her. She pays the delivery boy and takes the steaming cartons, checking absently to see that he's included chopsticks. Then, balancing the tray with ease of practice in one hand, she knocks on Steve's door. There's no answer. Setting her shoulders, Jenny opens the door and goes in.

The lights are on against the approaching evening, but the room is empty. On the far side, the lanai doors are open; a soft breeze slips through them to play over the papers weighted down on Steve's desk.

"Steve?"

Still no answer. Jenny crosses the room and rounds the desk to glance out the doors into the dusk beyond.

Steve is sitting a few yards along, with his back to the wall and his long legs drawn up in front of him. She can't see his face in the poor light, but he's staring out at the Palace grounds below. It doesn't take any imagination to know what he's looking at. The Palace's paths and gardens are symmetrical – while this is the opposite side to that where Danny's car sat, it's the mirror image of the lot.

"Steve?" she says again, quietly. He raises his head and turns, face still in shadow.

"Yeah, honey?" His voice is too low for her to read anything but exhaustion into it.

"I brought you some dinner. Hot and spicy soup, lemon chicken and mixed veggies from the Golden Dipper."

There's an over-long pause, and then, "Thanks. You should head home; it's past knocking-off time." Maybe it's the fact that Steve doesn't rise to take the tray from her, or maybe it's the fact that he has both realised it's the end of her shift _and_ instructed her to go home. Whatever it is, his behaviour is abnormal enough that she screws up her courage and steps closer.

"Is there someone I can call? Your sister?" Even as she asks, she knows what the answer will be. Danny Williams was Steve's touchstone, the only one he allowed himself.

"No," barks Steve immediately, and then sighs. "No, Jenny. Thank you." His tone is laced with unmistakable finality. Jenny purses her lips, but puts the tray down beside him.

"Goodnight, boss," she says softly, drifting back inside on a raft of pain and guilt.

Steve doesn't answer.

* * *

><p>Danny's first real thought is that he's hungry. His stomach is churning painfully, and he finds that at some point he has twisted to lie curled around it, as if that might lessen the discomfort.<p>

He slowly realises that the sudden spike in hunger has been prompted by the scent of food – greasy take-out pizza, in fact, still in its box. The perfect food for a captive not allowed cutlery, his cop's experience tells him, but it's overridden by his hunger.

The box is sitting halfway between the bed and the door, and he rolls off the bed to scramble to it with speed if not elegance. Lifting the lid he finds there's only half a pizza inside, but that doesn't matter either – nor does the fact that it's gone pretty cool and the cheese has hardened. Danny crams it into his mouth all the same, salivating so quickly it's painful as the first drop of rich tomato sauce hits his tongue.

He eats three slices in quick order, so fast he would have burnt the whole roof of his mouth if the pizza had been fresh out of the oven. There's a plastic cup filled with water, and he drinks all of it in one go, then pauses for breath. There's one piece of pizza left, and he picks it up and carries it over to the window where he stands leaning against the wall for support, trying to stare through the thick plastic covering.

It's dark outside – 8:10 by his watch – and the streetlights must be pretty faint because he can only see a vague gleam of light through the plastic. He can't hear anything, which means either they're in the middle of nowhere or there's glass on the other side of the plastic, or both. He knocks his elbow into the plastic and finds it bends out about a quarter of an inch before stopping – glass, then.

"Danny?"

Danny starts and turns, chain rattling. Hank is standing in the doorway, watching him. "Did you like the pizza?"

He looks down at the remains of the crust in his hand. "Oh, yeah. It was great. Thanks."

"I know you like Chinese from the Golden Dipper, but pizza's easier."

Danny crinkles his brow theatrically. "You don't like chopsticks?"

"Oh, no, it's just that it's pretty – never mind." Hank shifts gears in mid-sentence, suddenly suspicious, and Danny berates himself for pushing.

"Okay," he says, with docile cheerfulness. "Well, thanks for getting it. I hope you had some?"

"Yeah." Hank still looks suspicious, and Danny wracks his brain for something to say to keep him talking, keep him from getting the drugs out.

"Good. Hey, listen, Hank. I was thinking. About Mattie. He's not gonna be put out that you're looking after me like this, is he? I mean, I know you used to look after him, and I wouldn't want to make trouble or anything…"

For an instant, Danno thinks it was the wrong thing to say, was the worst thing to say. Hank's face contracts in anger, whitening in the poor light. But then he fists his hands and shakes his head. "You don't remember. He made you forget, didn't he? Made you think it wasn't important. That's okay. I know he won't let you care, won't let you help."

"Right. I know that now. So why don't you tell me what happened? So I can know the real story."

Hank paces back and forth, arms crossed and fingers tapping against his sleeves. Finally, he stops and turns. "Mattie's gone," he says, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. "It wasn't his fault. _He_ said it was, he made up lies about Mattie. You tried to stop him, but he stomped right over you and spread them around in the papers and on TV. He made everyone blame Mattie, made everyone hate him. They wouldn't even come to his funeral – not his friends, not his colleagues. They all believed the lies." Hank is breathing hard now, words pouring out coated in fury. He trembles with the strength of his emotion, and Danny swallows thickly. He needs to derail this, fast. But his head is spinning slowly again, hands and feet oddly numb.

"You're right, Hank," he says, softly. "You're right." Hank looks up at him, hands still fisted by his side and eyes still narrow, and Danny hurries on through the cotton wool in his mind. "He made everyone believe him, made them believe the lies. But we can stop that. We can put the truth out there – you know it, and I know it. I've got a lot of friends in HPD, Hank. Lots of pals who know what Mc – he's – really like. We can reopen the case. You can give evidence, show that it wasn't Mattie's fault. Together, we can clear his name. Just think … what it would look like … what he would think... if you showed him up…" Danny trails off, thoughts slipping away from him. He's having trouble grasping them, can't seem to concentrate…

Across the room, Hank is much more blurry than he was before. Danny takes a step away from the wall, and the room tips suddenly. The floor is hard under him, linoleum cool against his face. "What's… Hank?" He feels the pizza crust tumble from his finger, stares at its fuzzy outline in slowly dawning comprehension.

"Don't worry, Danny. I think you've got him beat. You're gonna be okay, now. You're gonna be okay."

* * *

><p>Steve will never forget the day his nephew died, the way his own throat filled with salt in sympathy with his sister, choking on the other end as she pleaded with him through her tears.<p>

He's sitting here again, alone in the dark Honolulu night with the cool breeze fanning through his hair, but there are no tears in his eyes tonight. The baby's death, heart-wrenching as it had been, had been a long time in coming. And his grief on his sister's behalf, although keen as a knife, had been so quickly turned to rage towards the quack who was exploiting her, who promised down to the last minute that she could still save the dying infant.

What he feels now… Steve doesn't have a word for it. It isn't grief, or rage, or guilt. It's not even numbness. It's like a ragged, serrated hole has been carved into his chest, black and gaping. And the instant he probes it, he slices loose such a torrent of pain that it's all he can do to shove it back again before it overwhelms him.

Giving your life in the line of duty is a concept that Steve understands implicitly; one he's even had to force Danny to accept in the past. Steve himself has long lived with the awareness that he might some day lose his life to the job that's already taken it in every other sense. Objectively, he's always been equally aware the same could be true for any man in the office – especially for his second in command. And objectivity is what he has based his entire world on. Without it, a state police becomes a police state, and nothing distinguishes it from the criminals it's supposed to be locking up.

Everything he believes, everything he knows, everything he has ever said or done – they all uncompromisingly set out what he has to be and do now to solve this case.

But the hole in his heart is slowly slicing him apart. More and more, it seems that all he can think of is Danno, screaming in a split-second of agony before the heat of the flames seared the life out of him. And, as he sits alone in his office with his hands laced together so tightly his nails are blue, he's not sure how much longer he can keep his heart from destroying everything he believes.

* * *

><p>Danny wakes fully lucid for the first time in a day and a half. There's no more blurring in his vision or curious deadness in his limbs. Most apparently though, there's no more dullness hovering at the edge of his thoughts, leaving him feeling disconnected and unable to link ideas. It's clear to him for the first time just how doped he's been kept. Shivering, he kicks the sheets away and stands.<p>

It's light in the room, as light as it ever gets. Checking his watch, he finds it's just after nine. More than 36 hours since he was nabbed, more than 24 since he would have been missed at work. The fact that he hasn't been found means there are probably no leads, which makes sense. The Palace parking lot is the last thing he remembers, and nothing other than the Palace has a clear line of sight to it. After six at night, the offices on that side of the building would have been empty. And, of course, there will be no ransom demand. No clues at all other than his abandoned car.

Danny walks over to the covered window, resting his arms on the windowsill. His wrists are stinging badly, and for the first time he notices that the skin there is heavily bruised and abraded. He shifts the cuffs further up his arms and smiles grimly: at least there was some benefit to the drugs.

Standing in the weak daylight, Danny tries to assess his options. There is always the possibility that Hank will let him go once he's convinced his captive has "broken free" of Steve's influence. Danny weighs that hopeful prospect against the darker possibility, that the obviously highly unstable Hank's current attachment to Danny will morph into the same hatred he feels for McGarrett, and lead him to commit violence or murder. Danny doesn't like the chain, he doesn't like the stalking, and he doesn't like the drugs; they speak not only of cunning premeditation but the kind of unhinged desperation that can so easily escalate for no rational reason.

Trying to wet his mouth against the lingering dryness, Danny makes up his mind. A glance at the door confirms that it's closed. He turns so that his back is to the window, finds the bottom corner with his elbow, and jams it backwards forcefully. There's a quiet tinkle of glass and he remains tensed, but the door doesn't open. He waits for several seconds longer, than turns back to the window.

The hard plastic cover is still in place on the inside of the glass. Examining it closely with now-sharp eyesight, Danny can see that it is screwed into the window frame by L-shaped pieces of metal, one positioned every foot or so along all sides. The plastic has been cut to fit the window's dimensions exactly, making it impossible to pull it towards him. But with the glass on the other side now broken, Danny is able to push the corner of the plastic covering outwards until it bends stiffly under the pressure, enough to wrap his fingers around it. There isn't much give at all; he can barely force out a gap two inches wide from the window corner to the plastic. Fingers aching, Danny squats down to peer out the tiny opening into the bright morning.

The window is ground-level, and faces out onto a wide, dirty alleyway. The wall opposite him is lined by a wooden slat fence covered in carvings and graffiti; the concrete road between him and the fence is uneven and cracked, with weeds growing up between the fissures. A blue metal dumpster is just visible at the edge of his line of sight, the paint faded and scraped. He can hear engines roaring in the distance, a constant low hum, but not much immediate traffic. The breeze now drifting in has little of the tropical scent common to Honolulu's greener areas – if anything, there's a tinge of exhaust in the air. A residential slum, Danny concludes, probably on the outskirts of town near a highway or one of the major overpasses.

Danny tries to fold the plastic further back to gain a better view, hopefully with some sign of a street or sidewalk. The plastic under his fingers gives a surprisingly loud crack and slaps back against his palm, the corner broken clean off. It falls from his stinging hand to the ground below, leaving a very noticeable triangular hole behind. Danny swivels hurriedly, covering the gap with his body and tensing to make a rush at Hank, but there is still no movement from the door. After several seconds his heartbeat slows, and he slumps back against the window. His mouth and throat are still dry, stomach churning in hunger, but he doesn't dare to leave to go to the sink.

Behind him, Danny hears a soft tread, and he turns with a metallic clatter to look out the window again. There's a young Hawaiian boy hurrying along the alleyway, stick-thin in dirty clothes and shoes that are far too big for him. He's about 10, Danny judges, a typical Honolulu street rat. Probably skipping school to shine shoes or clean windshields for nickels.

"Hey, kid." He's torn between whispering for his own safety, and speaking normally to hook the kid, and the compromise is a suspicious hiss that meets neither need. The boy stops and looks around, but stays close to the fence. "Over here, here, the window." Danny can't wave, can only watch the boy's eyes dart across the face of his building until they find the hole in the window. "I need your help."

"What'cha want?" The boy crosses his arms and rests his weight unevenly on one hip, the picture of scepticism.

"I need you to take a message to someone. It's important." Danny runs a harsh eye over every detail of the boy's appearance, searching for anything that would mark him as having reason to fear the police – needle marks, bruises, clothes or trinkets out of his price range. He finds nothing, and ventures out over a wide chasm. "I'm a cop," he says, and waits for the boy to run, jaw clenched tightly. The kid raises his eyebrows, but doesn't take off.

"I know – it's hard to believe. But I'm in a lot of trouble. Look." He steps back and raises his hands to display the handcuffs and heavy metal chain. Not much of it can be visible through the torn plastic, but hopefully enough of it is. "I need you to go to Five-O headquarters. In the 'Iolani Palace – you know it?"

"I know it," agrees the boy, noncommittally.

"My name is Williams, Danny Williams. I work for McGarrett."

"Where's your badge, cop?"

He glances around the room behind him, but his jacket is nowhere to be seen. He checks his pants pockets again, but there's nothing there. He turns back. "It was stolen; I'm locked in here. You've got to tell McGarrett."

The boy steps closer, appraising him. "How much'll you give me?"

"I don't have anything on me, but Steve – McGarrett'll pay you."

"Uh-uh. Bread up front or nothing. I ain't going all the way across town for some _pupule_ promise."

"I – please –" Something behind him creaks, and Danny swivels with his heart in his throat, hands raised to strike. But there's nothing there; the door is still closed. "I'm in real trouble here. McGarrett'll give you ten dollars if you bring him here – promise."

The kid shakes his head. "Sorry, man. Ain't good enough. I don't take jobs from crazy haoles for free." He starts walking.

"No – wait!" Danny pats himself down – no tie pin, nothing in his breast pocket, nothing in his pants, his watch – "Wait! Here!" He strips the watch off, metal clasp digging harshly into his already raw skin as he rips it off hurriedly. The kid reappears, closer now, and he pushes the watch out the small hole in the window. "You can get five bucks for that, easy. Go to McGarrett and he'll give you another five. 'Iolani Palace, top floor. Tell him Williams is here, and I need help. Got it?"

The boy takes the watch, examining it from all angles in the bright sunlight as he repeats in a bored tone, "Tell McGarrett Williams is here and needs help. Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"Great. Will you hurry? Please?"

The kid looks up from the watch, vaguely irritated by the distraction. "Man, you're really strung out about this."

"You've got no idea. Just go."

"Okay, okay, I'm gone." He puts the watch on his tiny wrist – even at the tightest notch, it's still too loose and bounces like a bangle as he moves – and heads off at a reasonable jog. Danny sighs and closes his eyes, turning to rest his back against the wall.

If the kid gets to Steve – and the fact that he didn't take off at the mention of cops is a good sign – everything will be alright. Steve can be here in an hour, maybe less, and they can get this whole fiasco wrapped up before the end of the day.

"You lied," whispers a quiet, outraged voice. Danny's eyes snap open and he jumps up from the wall to see Hank standing in the middle of the room, staring at the broken window beside him. "Everything you said."

"Hank, just listen to me –"

"You never believed me. You never cared about Mattie. You're just like him." Hank's eyes track from the window to Danny. They're hard and intense, staring with the absolute conviction of a pure fanatic. Danny steps away from the window, careful to keep his movements slow and open.

"That's not true, Hank. I was just getting a bit cooped up in here – I needed some air –"

"LIAR! You _want_ to go back to him! You _want_ to be like him! DON'T LIE TO ME!" He scrabbles in the pocket of his pants as he shouts, and comes up with a capped syringe.

Danny raises his hands, tensing for the spring. The adrenaline rush seems all the headier on an empty stomach, every line and shadow in the room standing out in sharp relief. "Hank, don't do this. We can still end this happily – you need help, Hank. I can get it for you. I can help fix things."

"_You _want to help _me_? Like McGarrett helped Mattie?" He shakes his head, lip curling. "I know you now. I _know_ you – I should have seen it all along!" Hank launches himself forward, syringe in one hand, the other fisted tight.

Danny's ready for the charge, and despite having his hands cuffed together he has the advantage of training and experience. He side-steps the first mad rush and turns ready to fend off a grab, expecting Hank to go for his arm. Instead he's forced to throw himself out of the way as Hank charges at him full-tilt, bringing the syringe down like a knife at Danny's chest.

Danny keeps his balance through the dodge and comes around to meet the next attack, but forgets to protect the fully extended chain. Hank stomps on it, hard, and Danny gasps as the cuffs slam into his bruised wrists and force him to the ground. Then Hank's boot is in his ribs, kicking him over onto his back and expelling all the breath from his lungs. He tries to use the motion to roll all the way over onto his knees, but the second kick catches him under his chin and sets off an explosion of lights behind his eyes.

After them, the sharp stab of pain in his arm is hardly enough noticeable. Danny slowly unfolds onto his back while above him, feverish mutterings degrade into background noise.

TBC


	4. Chapter 3

Steve sleeps in the office, rising from the couch at dawn to make himself coffee. Although he assumes the rest of Five-O has arrived as usual, he has no proof of it until he ventures out around half-past nine to pick up his sorted mail and messages from Jenny. Danno used to bring them into their daily 9:00 meeting, and clearly Jenny is too swamped to have adjusted. She's on the phone when he comes out, and indicates the pile with an apologetic wave of her pen, without interrupting the flow of her conversation. "No, sir. No. No, Mr. McGarrett has no further comments at this time. Any releases relating to the Williams case will be made in open statements. No. Good morning." She glares at the phone as she slams it back into its cradle. "Vultures."

Steve glances into the two occupied cubicles as he flips through the mail. Chin is reading through a sheaf of files and taking notes; Ben is on the phone. The knots in his shoulders ease slightly; for the moment, at least, work is managing to continue. Steve heads for his office and is closing the door behind him when he hears a child say, "I want to see Mr. McGarrett."

It's less his name than the tone – loud, bored and completely unimpressed by the fact he is in the head office of the state police – that makes Steve turn. A small Hawaiian boy is standing in front of Jenny's desk, looking like he owns the place. Steve smiles slightly, and comes back to interrupt Jenny's questions.

"Yeah, son?"

The boy looks up at him, hands on his hips. "You McGarrett?"

"That's right."

"I got a message for you. Some _lolo_ guy told me to see you. Said you'd give me five bucks," he adds, crossing his arms.

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Oh yeah? What's the message."

"He said to tell you he needs help. Says his name is Williams."

Every sound in the room is abruptly highlighted by its silence. The clicking of Jenny's typewriter, the scratching of Chin's pen, Ben's low voice on the telephone – they all cut out at the words. The office is suddenly absolutely still.

"What did you say?" To his ears his tone sounds cold, frozen, a voice without a heart. But he knows enough to know that right now the world inside his head and the one outside are not on a 1 to 1 scale.

"The guy said his name's Williams, and to tell you he needs help. He said he's a cop. And he said he'd give me five bucks." The kid sticks out his open hand expectantly for his reward. And Steve sees red.

Quick as a snake he strikes, grabs the boy's arm and pulls him close. "Who told you that? Who told you to tell me that? You tell me where he is. _Where?_"

Behind him, Jenny's caught hold of his arm and is trying to pull him back. But she's hampered by her desk and is no weight at all even without it in the way. In his grip, the kid is squirming, face tight and twisted.

"Let go – I told you, some _lolo_ guy – a haole. In one of the cheap dives down off Middle. Let go of me!"

"Who was he?"

"Steve, let go of the kid! Steve!" Jenny's run round the desk to the boy's side now, and is trying to pull his hand away.

"I don't know! I told you, just some _lolo _haole! You're hurting me!"

Chin hurries over to help, and Steve lets the kid go. He stumbles back, holding his wrist and glaring. "You're _all_ _lolo_, man! I'm outta here."

He makes to leave, still holding his wrist. And Steve finally notices what's been right in front of him. "Stop him," he says, more to himself than anyone else. No one moves, and the kid slips around the outer desk. "Stop him!" bellows Steve, and now Ben steps forward almost reluctantly to close the door in front of the boy.

The office seems very far away, compared to the black storm of thoughts whipping savagely through his mind. Steve takes a deep breath and forces himself to stay calm, to remain exactly where he is. Everyone in the room is staring at him, but only one thing matters.

"Where did you get that watch, son?" Kindliness is far out of his reach, but he manages an even tone. The kid shrinks away, back towards the door, and glares at Steve with dark eyes.

"He gave it to me. Didn't have any bread. Said I could sell it. He did!"

Behind him, the phone is ringing. Steve hears Jenny answer it without really listening, hears her try to disengage from the caller – "Now's not – not a good time. Could you call back later?"

"What did he look like?" barks Steve, ignoring his secretary.

"Dunno – it was too dark in the room. And the hole in the window was tiny, like a rat hole."

"You couldn't see him through the glass?" interrupts Chin, speaking for the first time. The boy glances at him disdainfully.

"No – it was all covered up on the inside. Like I said – crazy."

"Steve?" Jenny's voice is querulous; when he turns to look at her he sees she's leaning away, phone held against her chest with both hands. "It's Dr. Bergman. He says it's absolutely urgent, can't wait." She's almost whispering – afraid, he recognises. The realisation – that right now, every person in this room is afraid of him and what he might do, is like an injection of ice water straight into his heart. He relaxes his hands and straightens from his tense stoop.

"Okay, honey." He reaches out a calm hand and takes the phone from his secretary. "Can it wait, Doc? I'm in the middle of something."

"Never mind that," comes Bergman's drawl from the other end of the line. It's as close to excited as the ME has ever sounded. "Steve, I just got the body from forensics this morning – I'll have to speak to Che, the delay is really unconscionable. The interference with –"

"Doc," Steve interrupts what he knows could quickly turn into a rant, his throat suddenly tight.

"Right, right. Like I was saying. I got the body, and started off checking for cause of death, although why I bothered I can't tell you –"

"_Doc!_" Steve's bloodhound-like focus is legendary, but it betrays him now, refuses to be shifted onto something – anything – other than that charred corpse in the morgue. He closes his eyes to stop the room spinning, and contemplates hanging up right now.

"Sorry, Steve." Bergman actually sounds contrite – another first. "But listen. Doing the tests, I had to check the throat and mouth. And Steve, this guy's teeth were a mess. I mean seriously destroyed."

For one unbearable instant, all Steve can think is that someone did this to Danny. That someone wasn't content with killing him in this horrific way, that they had to make him suffer first. There's a roaring in his head, the serrated hole in his heart splitting open to tear into him, white-hot fissures ripping through his chest. He hardly hears Bergman's rambling in the background.

" – see, Steve? It would have taken decades of serious neglect and even abuse to cause this kind of damage. No hygiene, and most likely heavy smoking and alcohol – although from the looks of these teeth paint thinner would be closer to the mark. I don't even have to look at Danny's dental records; that boy has perfect teeth. This isn't him, Steve."

Steve opens his eyes. The howling in his head dials back a notch. "What?

"This isn't him," repeats Bergman, triumphantly. "There's no way the corpse on this table is Danny Williams."

The world falls away for a few minutes, as if all the strings holding him to it were sheered away. At some point, Steve realises he's sitting at Jenny's desk with the phone back in its cradle – how he got there, he has no idea. Jenny's saying something to him; at his desk, Chin's on the phone to Bergman. Steve stands, fending off Jenny's hand on his arm, and for the first time in a day and a half takes control.

"You said you saw him in a dive off Middle?" he asks the boy, now staring at him with undisguised scepticism.

"Sure."

"You know the address?"

"Nope."

"Could you find it again?"

The kid gives him a long look; when he answers, it's clear he's not sure of his own price. "What's it worth to you?"

"Williams gave you the watch, and said I'd give you five?"

"That's right." He's still holding the watch, as if afraid Steve will try to snatch it from him. Maybe not an unreasonable fear, given what he's seen so far this morning.

"You take us to him, and give me the watch, and I'll give you fifteen." To prove it, he pulls his wallet out and strips the bills out – crisp fives. The boy hesitates, and Steve holds them out. "The watch is only worth five at best – the gears are going."

"Okay, deal. But I ain't going alone with you."

"Fine." He heads for the door, delegating as he goes by. "Chin, you come with us. Ben, take your car. Put a call out to HPD and get us some back-up; have them pick us up on the Lunalilo at the Halona ramp."

"Got it."

Steve pauses at the door and looks back to Ben, already picking up the phone. "And Ben? You tell them – you tell them if Danny Williams is there, I want him out." He doesn't have to say anything more, his tone conveys enough – more than enough. Ben nods tersely, and dials.

Danno may still be alive. Just thinking the words softens the painful tightness in his chest. He yanks the door open, and runs down the stairs with Chin and the kid in tow. They've already lost 36 hours. They're not going to lose any more.

* * *

><p>It's one of the tensest car rides Chin has ever taken. Steve, not the smoothest driver at the best of times, jerks the LTD through tight corners with a white-knuckled grip. In the back, Lani, the boy who had the bad luck to be introduced to Five-O in its worst moment, pipes up every now and then with a turn suggestion but mostly stares uneasily out the window. Chin, coordinating the HPD back-up cars over the CB, finds that the job still leaves him far too much time to think. And there's only one thought anchored in his mind: what if they're too late? Can they stand to lose Danny a second time?<p>

Glancing at Steve's face, grey and lined even in the morning sun, Chin knows the answer.

Behind them, three HPD cruisers follow in silence – there will be no warning of their approach. The radio, on the other hand, is anything but quiet. It bursts into life every few minutes, crowded with tense chatter – even the operators are following the case, it seems, and have eased off the usual regulations enforcement.

Mercifully, a few minutes after pulling off the highway, Lani points out a dirty two-storey stucco building on the corner of an alley. "There, that's it. He was in the first window on the left, on the alley side."

"You know who lives there?" asks Steve, staring at the building as they pass by it slowly.

"Nope."

"Alright. Chin, get HPD parked out of sight." He pulls over on the opposite side of the street and parks. As Chin relays the instructions to their back-up, Steve turns to lean into the back.

"Thanks, kid. You did good." He hands over the bills, and receives Danny's watch in return. "Sorry I was sharp with you."

"That's really a cop in there?" Maybe it's the money, or the radio calls, or the three squad cars behind them. For whatever reason, Lani seems finally to have realised the seriousness of his story.

"I hope so. If it is, you may have saved his life."

The boy folds away the money slowly. "Huh. Then good luck, I guess." He opens the sidewalk-side door and slips out; he's scrambled away into one of the deep shadows between the buildings before there's time to reply. Chin has no doubt that he's watching, wherever he is.

Steve turns to Chin. "Take three men and cover the alley. Find the window and go in that way if you can."

Chin nods. "Right, boss." He opens the door.

"And Chin?" Steve's checking the shells in his sidearm. He swings the cylinder back into the body of the revolver with a click and looks up at Chin. His eyes are burning with the same barely-contained rage Chin saw in the parking lot and Steve's office after Ben's tussle – the kind of rage that's one tiny push from murder. "Don't let any of them get away."

Chin nods again – there's nothing he can say.

He slips out of the car and hurries around to the pavement to wait for the uniforms. They show up only a few seconds later, cars parked further down the road out of the line of sight. Steve takes three across the street immediately, coming in towards the building from the left; Ben tears up alongside the pavement a few seconds later and follows after them. Chin waits for the rest and then takes them over towards the other side of the building.

"We watch the alley. No one gets out. You see Williams, you pull him _wikiwiki_."

"We got Ben's message," says one of the cops seriously; the others nod in agreement.

"Good. Williams was supposedly seen in the first window on the left. We check it – if he's there, Paul and I'll go in after him." Chin signals to the cop who spoke up, who nods. "If not, we let Steve sweep the place and make sure none of the rats get out of the holes."

Chin's radio crackles, and Steve's voice comes over. "We're moving in. Chin, go."

"Got it."

The cops don't wait for orders; they slip into the alleyway, bent low. One waits at the mouth while the other runs down to the other end of the house; Paul runs over to the building beside him and they crouch under the window. Like the boy said, there's what looks like a sheet of plastic or frosted glass inside the window, making most of it impenetrable. But the glass in one corner has been broken as if by a baseball, as has the plastic. Chin peers into the darkness, waiting impatiently for his eyes to adjust but seeing no signs of movement in the dimness. Then, as his eyes adjust, a shadow moves across a ray of light. He tightens his grip on his revolver, but an instant later a ceiling light is switched on to reveal Ben standing in the doorway of a small room.

"Clear," he says to someone in the house, and then turns to the window. "There's no one here."

"No one out here, either," replies Chin, turning away from the building as his adrenaline turns to burning disappointment.

"Sir, there's something over here," hails the man sent down to watch the other end of the alley. There's a blue dumpster there, which from the looks of the rust set in around its wheels hasn't been emptied for some time. Chin jogs over, accompanied by Paul. The officer points to the other side of the dumpster. Using the dumpster and fence acting as two steady walls, a makeshift hovel has been constructed with some piping forming the skeleton of a third wall to allow a tarpaulin to be drawn over it into a sagging roof. The bottom has been lined with cardboard, and contains a few scraps of fabric and some empty bottles.

"Wino," concludes Paul. "Might have seen something, though, if we can find him."

Chin nods. "Start canvassing the neighbourhood. Look for him, and anyone else who might've seen anything. Start on the north side of the street and this alley – I'll send the other guys out to do the other sides."

"Got it."

Chin hurries inside to send the rest of the uniforms out, but is stopped dead by the look on Ben's face. The other Five-O detective is standing staring at one wall of a combined kitchen-dining room. Beside the table, still set for breakfast with a cup of coffee beside the dirty plate, one wall has been covered with pinned up pieces of paper. Chin comes over to see what's on them, and feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

The entire wall is covered with pictures of Danny Williams. None of them have been taken by a personal camera – each one has been cut carefully from a magazine or newspaper. The span of papers covered – all the Hawaiian papers plus a few mainland ones, and a wide scope of local and national magazines – and the varying ages of the article suggests either a very long surveillance, or very deep research. Almost more disturbing, though, is the treatment of Steve. Anytime Danny has appeared with someone else, their heads have been blacked out by marker, with the exception of Steve. In every single picture he appears in, the head of Five-O has had his eyes scratched out. Chin runs his fingers over one of the mutilated pictures, and finds that the grooves extend to the wall below.

"This guy is nuts," whispers Ben, shaking his head. Chin's about to agree when Steve calls shortly from the other room.

"Here."

From the inside, the room seems slightly bigger. The hole in the window is immediately noticeable, but that may just be because he's looking for it. It's not what Steve's looking at, though, and Chin turns his attention to the side wall. Behind him, Ben comes in and curses under his breath.

Someone's driven a heavy metal pin into the wall, effectively nailing a long metal chain into it. A mattress has been placed under it, forming a messy and unmade bed. The chain has been pulled in a reasonably straight line towards the window; its end lies in a little heap of links. Beside it on the dirty linoleum floor are drops of what looks very much like blood.

"Ben," says Steve, without looking up, "run the address – I want to know who lives here."

Ben doesn't bother to answer, just runs out.

"Chin. The alley?"

"No one tried to get out. There was a hovel out there – probably some wino. He might give us some clues when he turns up. The uniforms are doing a door-to-door; I was about to send the rest out to help. Maybe a couple can check for the bum."

"They won't find him," says Steve. He looks up; his face is cold and hard as stone. "Bergman said the corpse in that car had the kind of teeth you'd expect from a heavy smoker and drinker. How many drunks do you know who're out of their beds at ten on a Sunday?"

He turns and walks out into the kitchen, where he glances at the photos on the wall and turns away. Chin takes the opportunity to order the other three HPD officers out to canvas the other sides of the neighbourhood, concentrating on neighbours rather than tracking down the missing alley inhabitant. They're just leaving when something lying crumpled on the seat of the second chair catches Steve's eye. He bends and picks it up, holds it up in front of him. It's an olive-green suit jacket with matching silver and green checked tie.

"He killed the wino to fake Danny's death, and brought him here. Why? And where are they now?" He puts Danny's watch into the pocket of the jacket and folds it easily over his arm. He's just turning to go to the bedroom when Ben runs in.

"Ran a reverse DMV license check. There were two drivers registered at this address – Matthew and Hank Lowe. Matthew Lowe's license was cancelled six months ago by his death – Jenny's running a deeper search."

The names strike a chord with Chin; judging by the frown on Steve's face, he's not alone.

"Matthew Lowe… Matthew Lowe… that crash up near Diamond Head!" As soon as Steve says it, Chin remembers.

"Right, the ambulance accident. It was just before you joined Five-O, Ben. The driver was hopped up on morphine, went right over the edge. He and the woman he was driving both died."

Ben frowns. "Where was his partner?"

"Lowe took off without him when the call came in – like I said, he was really tripping. His kid brother took it hard. Wouldn't believe it, although there was a lot of anecdotal evidence from his coworkers, and then when the blood work came back…"

"His pals all knew about it, or at least didn't ask. They said he never shot up while he was on duty, so they looked the other way," says Steve. "They thought he had it hard – the brother was a bit of a head case, and Matthew gave up on med school to raise him after their parents died. One way or another he was still looking out for the kid – they were living together when he died."

"But what does this have to do with Danny?" asks Ben. "Why was Five-O involved in an accident in the first place?"

"The woman who died was a possible informant in another case. There was a possibility that her death might have been a hit." Steve turns to look at the disturbing wall again. "But Danny…"

"Danny was his first point of contact," remembers Chin. "He interviewed the kid."

Steve shrugs. "We both did. I guess Danny was softer with him. I suggested drug use, and that didn't go over well at all. Danny said we wouldn't know for sure until the tests came in, that it might be something else – slippery roads, brake failure. Something like that. And he might've gotten him a coffee, or something to eat. But that was it." Steve shakes his head and pounds his fist into his open hand. "How can that be it?"

Ben steps over to the kitchen and starts going through the drawers. Chin checks the sideboard, and then goes over to the table. It's only laid for one – Danny must've eaten in the bedroom. If he ate at all.

"Hey," says Ben softly; they turn to see him holding up a small metal case. He opens it to reveal three small glass vials. "Morphine. Looks like Hank kept some of his brother's stash. Or at least he did for a while – they're all empty. Was he a junkie too?"

Chin frowns, trying to remember. "No sign of it that I recall. We searched the house when the blood work came back. Found nothing. He must've had that stuff good and hidden." He picks up the coffee cup by its handle; it's half full, dark liquid slopping against the side. Chin sticks his thumb into it, and looks up sharply.

"Steve – it's still warm."

"They just left." Steve looks from him to the wall of photos, to the bedroom. "They_ just left_. _Why?_" He steps over to the photos. "He hates me – eyes mutilated, gouged out. Everyone else is blacked out too. Danno's the centre, unaltered. He didn't take him to kill him – he could have killed him in the parking lot. He's engineered this whole thing so we won't look for Danno, so he could have him without anyone knowing. Why?"

"He's nuts – who says there's a reason?" asks Ben, and flinches as Steve rounds on him.

"No one – not even someone seriously disturbed – goes to this amount of trouble without a goal!" He gestures at the wall. "We know he doesn't want to kill Danno. Does he want to get information out of him? No – the only connection between them is his brother, and he must know more about his brother than Danno does. Does he want money – no, he wouldn't fake the death."

Chin is only listening with half an ear. He's staring at the pictures on the wall, trying to make sense out of them, trying to draw some kind of connection between them. There doesn't seem to be one, though – they're just random photos of Danny as they appeared in any news story that related to him. There's one of him taken from a story commending him, and beside it another taken from a story criticising him for being trigger-happy. But at the top of the wall, one picture that has been squeezed in the middle stands out. "Steve," says Chin, and points.

It's a real photograph, not a reproduction out of a paper or magazine. It shows two men who Chin couldn't claim to recognize but vaguely thinks might be the Lowe brothers. And, carefully glued beside the younger one, is a picture of Danny cut out of some other photograph. "Him and his brother, I guess."

"And Danny," says Ben, squinting. "But what –"

He doesn't have time to finish, because Steve shoves past both of them towards the door. "Steve, what –"

Steve stops in the doorway, eyes burning. "He's replacing his brother with Danno, right?"

"Well, maybe, but –"

"And where did his brother end up?"

Chin opens his mouth to answer, but Steve's already gone.

TBC


	5. Chapter 4

Even with the windows rolled down and the speedometer needle touching 80, Steve feels unbearably hot, almost feverish. Everything seems to be aching – his head, his muscles, his bones – as he pushes the accelerator pedal closer and closer to the floor. The siren is blaring away overhead, slicing away the already thin midday freeway traffic and leaving his route unimpeded; the sound of it is making his skull split.

He has no reason to think Lowe's at Diamond Head, other than his gut feeling. If Lowe really is moulding Danno into a replacement for his brother, there could be no rational reason to harm him. But there was no trace of rationality in that apartment – not in the pictures on the wall, and not in the bloody chain in the bedroom. And his gut has kept him alive through a long career of intentionally leaping headlong into danger. Steve knows it's not wrong now.

Somewhere behind him, Chin is on the radio requesting back-up at Diamond Head. But although it's on the other side of Honolulu from Lowe's apartment, Steve's already more than halfway there and still slipping through the miles like a surfer over waves. There's no point in getting the uniforms downtown to hold up traffic along his route – he'll be through before they get into position.

Diamond Head Road runs along the slope of the huge volcanic cone, between the apex and the sea. Both sides of the road are sheer, the cone-side rising sharply up towards the circular mouth and the ocean-side giving way straight down onto the island's rocky edge. Matthew Lowe's ambulance went over the edge at the road's steepest point, beside an enlarged gravel shoulder acting as a scenic stop; the investigation suggested he might have tried to pull over to stop there and accelerated instead.

The cone of Diamond Head is a tourist destination, but the steep ocean drop is not – there are far more beautiful and stunning scenes to be found on Oahu. That, added to the grey sky above, makes Steve confident there will be no tourists on the pull-off. And, as he rounds the corner, he finds he's right.

There's only one car parked on the expanded gravel shoulder, a battered old Ford. The back driver's side door is wide open, casting a slice of dim shadow on the stones below. That's all he has time to notice, because it's then that his eye catches the two men making their way to the edge of the open scenic spot.

Steve recognizes Hank Lowe solely because he's expecting to see him. He only met the man twice during the investigation into his brother's death, both meetings lasting less than ten minutes. Even without knowing him, though, Steve can see the man is on the verge of a breakdown. Sweat has turned his shaggy hair into a mess of rat tails and given his pale face a waxy look. His movements as he drags his captive towards the edge of the precipice are spasmodic, and he's muttering to himself.

Steve slams on the breaks and nearly skids into the barrier; suddenly, he has no more attention to spare for driving. No more attention for anything other than the second man on the shoulder.

Danny Williams is there. Right there in front of him. Alive and breathing.

Somehow, he had expected finding Danno to cool the heat in his head. Expected relief to douse the firestorm. But as he scrambles out of his car, it blazes up so intensely the edges of his vision white out, and sound disappears to be replaced by the roaring of his racing heartbeat.

He didn't calculate seeing this.

Danno is on his feet, but only nominally – behind him Lowe is holding him up. His hands are cuffed in front of him, wrists red with wet blood that has smeared onto his white shirt; there's also a long, thin smear of blood on his left bicep. His head is lolling backwards, nodding with each step he's forced to take. Lowe is dragging him backwards with sharp jerks as though he were a life-sized dummy, with most of Danno's weight resting against him.

A screaming mix of sirens announces the imminent arrival of back-up; Steve ignores them entirely.

"Danno!" Danno doesn't react, clearly most of the way down the well of unconsciousness. "Danno!" Steve puts down an arm to boost himself over the corner of the parked Ford, skidding around the hood in a slew of gravel. "_Danno!_" This time, the younger detective's head moves of its own accord as he tries to raise it.

The sirens cut out and tires screech behind Steve on the edge of the asphalt, doors slamming open and feet pounding. In front of him, Lowe has stopped under two yards from the steel barrier at the very edge of the shoulder. He's panting hard under the burden, sweat staining his shirt. Danno's not very tall but he's well built, and Lowe doesn't look like any kind of athlete. As Steve watches Lowe judders as his knees start to buckle, and then drops abruptly to one knee, holding Danno up with an arm hooked under each of the detective's. Danno tries weakly to twist out of his grip, but Lowe holds him tight, crushing his chest until Danno drops back against him.

There's no conscious decision on Steve's part. His gun is just suddenly in his hand, aimed straight at Lowe's head. And the fury that has been burning him alive for a day and a half pours out of him in a snarl so thick he can barely make sense of the words himself. "Lowe, you son of a bitch, let him go! LOWE!"

Lowe, still struggling to get back to his feet, tries to yank Danno up by hooking an arm around his throat and pulling. Steve starts forward, rage and terror splintering in his chest, "Lowe – let him go, let him go _now_ or so help me –"

He's cocked the revolver without thinking about it, without thinking about anything. He knows it's wrong, knows it's the _absolute_ wrong, but that knowledge is screaming at him from the other side of a void with no bridge to carry it to him, because he _is not _going to stand here and watch this bastard try to kill Danno again. He takes another step, and from behind someone grabs him and yanks him backwards.

Steve tries to pull away once, hard, and when the grip doesn't give he swivels with his heartbeat pounding like a hammer in his head, ready to tear whoever it is to pieces for stopping him when Danno is _right there_ _needing help_.

Chin and Ben are standing behind him, shoulders high and bodies hunched as if leaning into a storm, faces set in masks that don't quite hide their fear. It's enough – barely – to keep Steve from striking out at them, from ordering them back, from breaking free forcefully and doing what his heart is driving him to.

"Boss," says Chin, looking up at him and speaking deliberately, "he ain't armed. And he ain't in his right mind, either."

"He's killed one man already. You are standing _right here_ watching him trying again. With Danno."

"So you'll kill him? There's no imminent danger, Steve. You think you can get away with that? You're right – you can. You're the only cop on the islands who could. But once you do, so can the rest of us. You made us stronger than we ever were. And you can break us." He lets go, and seems to shrink slightly, from boldness to quiet honesty. "I don't wanna see that, Steve."

Steve doesn't say anything. On Chin's other side, still holding his arm, Ben shifts and Steve turns his attention to him. Ben lets go, but doesn't back away. "I don't figure this is how Danny'd want you to bring him in."

Steve looks at him, hard, looking for an admission of hypocrisy. To his credit Ben doesn't flinch although he does give a minute shrug, which may be acceptance of his ethical about-face.

"I figure, my eyes, maybe they aren't so clear. But I do know beyond doubt that in Danny's, you can't do wrong, Steve. You gonna let him down?"

Behind him, there's a scuffle in the gravel. Steve turns, seeing as he does that the four uniforms have spread themselves into a semi-circle around Lowe, giving him several yards of room.

In the centre of it, Lowe's released Danno's neck but is trying to pull him to sit up. Danno, lying on his back, doesn't have much purchase. His feet have scraped two furrows in the gravel, but he isn't coherent enough to support himself with so much of his weight resting on Lowe and he slumps back down, effectively anchoring Lowe to the ground.

"It's over, Lowe," he says, very aware of Chin and Ben behind him as he lowers his gun. "You can't get away. Let Williams go, and we can finish this."

Lowe looks up, and for the first time seems to really see him. He blinks once, and then his face twists even as Steve watches. It slides through emotions so fast it's like watching loose sand blowing over dunes, from impatience into hatred. The emotion is so strong that his features have been completely transformed by it. His eyes are just tiny dark points between furrowed brows and raised cheek bones, his forehead a mass of wrinkles, his mouth wide and twisted. "No! You get out of here! _Get out of here_! GET OUT OF HERE!" Lowe jerks his arm, gesture half cut-off by his hold on Danno.

"I'm not going anywhere, Lowe. Let Williams go. There's no other way this is going to end." He takes a deep breath, keeps his arms low. "You're cornered, Lowe. Just let him go, and we'll be able to help you."

"Help? Like you _helped_ Mattie? You're poisonous, full of dripping, boiling venom – can't you feel it, burning you to ashes? Can't you – it's dripping out of you, in your clothes, melting your shoes, eating your shadow. And now it's in him – _you_ poisoned him! I thought I could save him, but I was wrong. He's just like you. You killed him – _can't you see_? _Can't you see?_" He's raving now, screaming and jerking at Danno. Steve's trigger finger is beginning to cramp as he fights to keep from raising the gun, fights the instincts that tell him all he has to do is pull the trigger, that it would be _so easy_.

"The only one hurting Danny here is you, Lowe. You don't want to do that. Neither do I. Just step away from him – that's all you have to do."

The uniforms are beginning to edge slowly inwards. Lowe doesn't seem to notice. He shakes his head.

"Me? He was already dead when I met him – and I never knew. He's been dead this whole time." He looks down at Danny, lying across his knees struggling weakly, and his tone shifts from furious to cold. He isn't talking to Steve anymore; Steve's not sure if he's even talking to himself. "Just like Mattie. Mattie died with our parents – after that, he wasn't Mattie anymore. I pretended not to know, but he died again here anyway. And now Danny will too."

"_No_." It's not a conscious reaction – Steve speaks without intending to as he starts forward at Lowe's threat. In his peripheral vision, the uniforms start to move more decisively. But Lowe is trying harder to stand now, managing this time to drag Danno up with him, and he has Danny's neck practically in his hands, and is standing a yard away from death.

Danno comes to his feet unwillingly, movements uncoordinated and sluggish. His eyes are flickering, but still mostly closed. He makes a low sound of pain as Lowe twists his shoulder while dragging him backwards, and Steve steps forward.

"Lowe, stop."

He doesn't, shuffling further backwards towards the cliff. In Lowe arms, Danny is struggling in a dazed torpor; all around Steve, the world seems to be narrowing into a tunnel.

"Lowe, drop him, dammit!"

The edge is only a yard away, the metal rim bordering it coming up to just above knee height. Steve side-steps forward, gun raised to eye-level. This is no longer an unarmed man – this is a man with every capacity to kill both himself, and Danno. And Steve will not – _cannot_ – let that happen.

"Lowe, you take another step and I _will_ kill you!"

Lowe looks up at him over Danno's shoulder. "You're too late. You already did."

He takes another step backwards, knees hitting the metal railing.

Steve tosses away the gun, and runs. "_Danno_!"

* * *

><p>Danny feels very wrong now. He feels cold and clammy, shivering dismally against the hard floor and trying to edge up against it to no effect. He's nauseous, too, occasionally tasting bile at the back of his throat. And for some reason the floor keeps bumping, making his head knock into the corner. He rolls with its movements, trying to hold himself steady but always falling back again when his shaking muscles give out under him. His wrists feel strange, somehow under pressure that he can't seem to shed. In the background something's humming, a constant sound like far-off thunder.<p>

Eventually the rolling stops, thunder fading away into quiet. Danny drops to lie still, but a moment later it gets much brighter, so bright he groans and tries to shy away as the light burns his eyes.

Something latches onto his arms and pulls, drags him until he falls out into the bright light and lands on uncomfortable shifting stones that dig into his palms and knees. He tries to pull away, but the grip on his arms is too tight. He staggers up instead, ankles twisting under him, and finds that his balance seems to have utterly deserted him.

All around him the world is full of sounds that Danny can't decipher. There's a high squealing, and a lower screaming that makes him wince. Somewhere far away, there's a soft continuous whisper. And, right here beside him, so close it seems to be pouring into his ear, is a harsh and uneven croaking. For some reason it repulses him, makes his already weak stomach turn, and he tries harder to break away – no give. The pressure on his wrists is melting away in a very cold sensation to reveal pins and needles underneath, shooting up his arms.

The world tilts suddenly, and he's no longer trying to stand but trying to sit, kicking uselessly to find purchase in a shifting pit of stones. His back is resting on something – it smells sour, fetid, and he recoils only to be pulled back again. This is wrong, he shouldn't be here, doesn't want to be here, but he can't seem to get away. All he wants is to lie down, but he can't, can't, can't…

There's more squealing, like a panicked pig, but over it is another lower roar. No – a voice. He knows it, can feel the familiarity in his bones, the relief.

Steve. It's Steve's voice. Steve, calling his name.

Danny tries to get to him, but he's gripped tighter. Tighter and tighter, until he can't breathe. Until the sharp smell of sweat and grease is all around him, suffocating him. Light and sound blur together, and he drops back to lie still for a while and tries to hang on to what he knows.

Steve is here, somewhere. He can still hear him. And if Steve's here, everything is alright.

But now the angry croaking voice is back, is shouting right here in his ear, sharp as lightning. And he's shaking again, rolling with the bumps. The pins and needles in his wrists are hardening slowly into pain, closely followed by a stiffness in his left arm. But it's overshadowed by the clamps on his arms being redoubled. And then they're moving again.

Danny still can't find his balance, kicks out only to feel his legs skidding uselessly away from him. Steve's still here, still with him. But the tone of his voice is making the hair stand up on Danny's neck – he can't make sense of the words, but he doesn't have to. He can sense the fear in Steve, sense the desperation. And he doesn't know what to do, can't make himself think, can't break away from the pain and the pressure and the croak in his ear.

"_Danno!_"

Danny opens his eyes against the blinding light as the world tips beneath him. All he can see is the blue sky and a blur of dark motion, but it's enough to know he's falling backwards. It's the ocean he can hear, he realises suddenly, the sea lapping up against the shore. Terror flashes through his heart in one leaping beat, an amalgamation of so many things – Steve's fear, the hatred and rage behind him, the ocean below. And then Steve catches hold of his arm and yanks him forward so hard his shoulders burn as if wrapped in sun-licked metal.

For an instant he's torn between forwards and backwards. Then the weight drops free from his back with a gull-like shriek, and Danny falls forward.

He instinctively flinches away from the hard landing, but it doesn't come. Steve catches his waist instead, sparing his aching arms, and helps him down.

All around him, men are running and shouting. Steve is one of the loudest, barking orders from beside him. Although Danny can't process any of the words, the tone of Steve's voice tells him things are alright now. It's impatience and irritation, not fear or anger. Even on the uneven ground with stones digging into his shoulder blades and his wrists aching and his throat itching, things are alright.

Danny lies with his head resting in Steve's hands, and for the first time in two days drifts into sleep of his own accord.

* * *

><p>In a lot of ways, the ride to the hospital tells Steve all he needs to know about Danno's past 36 hours.<p>

He gets the handcuffs off with his own keys, tossing the stained metal into the corner where it rattles briefly before he kicks it into silence. Danno's dirty shirt follows it, the same one he was wearing two days ago when Steve said good night to him in front of the Palace. Steve sets his jaw, and watches grimly as the paramedic takes Danno's vitals and starts setting up an IV. He takes one glance at Danno's left arm, and redirects to the right. Danno's left arm is a bingo-card of needle marks, most rimmed with the bruises and blood that mark careless injection.

"He was probably kept under morphine," Steve supplies, watching the glass bottle warily.

"Electrolytes for dehydration. His pulse is a bit thready, and he's running a low fever without much sweat."

Steve fights the psychological urge to flinch as the paramedic slips the IV needle under Danno's skin – the last thing he could want now is more needles in him – and the fact that at least he's unconscious is cold comfort.

"Five minutes," announces the driver from the front, as the paramedic finishes taping down the needle and moves on to Danno's wrists. The handcuffs have injured them badly, first bruising the tender skin and then tearing it, so that all that's visible is bloody tissue bordered by dark marks. Steve's eyes track to the other smear of blood, on Danno's left bicep, and finds the skin there red and inflamed. The tip of something is protruding from the wound, like an ugly sliver. He waits for the paramedic to finish with Danno's wrists, and points it out. The paramedic takes a look and nods, reaching for a plastic container.

"Looks like a syringe needle." He pulls out a pair of tweezers and carefully extracts the long, thin piece of metal which is indeed the needle snapped off a syringe. Clearly aware of police procedure, he drops it into a small plastic box and puts it aside, then starts to disinfect the wound. The ambulance takes a sharp corner, and as the bed rocks, Steve reaches out hurriedly to keep it steady.

Lying unconscious on the stretcher, head lolling with the motion of the ambulance, Danno looks close enough to the corpse the rest of the islands still think he is that on sudden impulse Steve leans forward to feel for a pulse beneath Danno's jaw.

The paramedic, taping a piece of gauze over the bicep wound, looks over at him. "He's been through the ringer, and his vitals are a bit spongy, but we see worse on Friday nights. He should be okay."

Steve doesn't acknowledge the comment – he doesn't need to. He can feel the strength of Danno's heart under his fingertips and knows it's true. It refused to give up, even when the rest of Five-O did.

And as his own heart beat finally slows in sympathy, Steve feels the tension drain out of him like water from a broken dam, leaving him alone at what feels like the bottom of a giant crater of aftermath.

When the ambulance arrives at its destination, he will step out and be Steve McGarrett, head of Hawaii Five-O again, and will have a hell of a lot of clean up to deal with.

But for the next few minutes, he'll let himself forget about that and simply enjoy the fact that against all odds, against everything he believed two hours ago, Danno is still alive. Right now, there is nothing outside this ambulance. His name doesn't matter, the past and future are somewhere on the horizon, and he can allow the relief to choke him with tears that for once he doesn't despise.

To be concluded


	6. Epilogue

Thanks for reading, and thanks to those folks who took the time to drop me a review - they're always much appreciated. Hope you enjoyed.

* * *

><p>Steve rings the doorbell at Danno's apartment, and when it isn't answered immediately has to force himself to wait rather than ring it again. It's nearly a minute before the lock clicks, and the door swings open just slightly too fast to indicate trepidation.<p>

Danno looks far better than he did in the hospital even yesterday evening. He's already regained a healthy colouring, and the bruising on his face has softened from vivid purple to a less obvious yellow. But there are new shadows under his eyes, and wariness in the way he carries himself. And, beneath the long sleeves of his shirt, the white tips of the bandages are peeking out.

Still, when he sees Steve, the nervousness goes out of his eyes and he smiles widely. "Steve."

Warmed by Danno's reaction, Steve smiles in return and steps inside. "How're you doing, Danno?"

"Good," answers Danno, as they step into the living room. The apartment's not very big, but Steve's immediate sense of it is that it's larger than it has seemed in the past. A glance at the carpets reveal that the furniture has been pushed back closer to the walls, creating a more open space. The soft, tropical breeze wafting through the room tells Steve that most, if not all, of the windows are open.

"My folks came by this morning to get me settled in. Mom wanted to stay and keep an eye on me – practically had to throw her out." Danno rubs at the back of his head, embarrassed. "Guess I gave them a bit of a scare."

"You gave us all a bit of a scare. Probably did us some good, though – it sure got butts off chairs down at HPD," he says, making a joke of it. Danno laughs and heads for the kitchen. "Want something to drink? I've got fresh everything."

Steve has a brief image of Irene in the grocery store, filling a cart with anything she can imagine her son might possible want, and turns away. "Whatever you're having," he says, walking in slow strides to the couch. There are a few copies of the Honolulu Advertiser lying on one of the seats; the headline of the top issue reads:

5-O DETECTIVE WILLIAMS ALIVE

KIDNAPPER DIES AFTER STAND-OFF WITH 5-O

Steve sits down on the opposite end of the couch from it, frowning. But a moment later Danno appears with two glasses of POG, and he wipes the concern off his face and accepts the drink. Danno seats himself in a recliner across from the couch, taking a sip from his drink – Steve sees that his left arm is still stiff.

"I spoke to the doctor this morning," says Steve, after taking a sip of the tart drink. "He said you weren't the most cooperative patient he's had."

Danno frowns, almost sulkily. "I waited for his okay to check out. It was ridiculous, Steve – he kept me in there for 48 hours, even though there's nothing wrong with me."

"Except for dehydration, serious abrasions, possible blood-borne infection, and morphine withdrawal," says Steve, dryly. Danno gives him an unimpressed look.

"You're starting to sound like the doc. And anyway, the tests came back negative. I'm fine apart from the shakes, and they'll be gone by tomorrow."

Steve nods. "I know. Doc says you can come back to work in three days, if you want to."

"I do." There's not even an instant of hesitation. Steve puts his drink down on a coffee table and leans forward.

"Danno, maybe you should take a couple of days off. Have a break. Relax, surf, spend some time on the beach."

"You saying I need to work on my tan, Steve?" He's still smiling, but there's steel at the edges now. Beneath the loose shirt, his frame is tense.

"I'm saying you've had a rough time, and you deserve a break," replies Steve, evenly.

Danno gets up abruptly and walks over to stand at the door to the balcony, looks out at the city beyond. The glass door is open, wind ruffling the floor-length curtains and the un-tucked hem of Danno's shirt.

"I appreciate the concern," he says after a minute, "but I just want things to be normal, and normal for me is working. Besides, if we're talking about rough times, you guys've got me beat hands down. Investigating a Five-O detective's murder with everyone breathing down the backs of your necks?" Danno's trying for carefree, but even with his back turned he's not quite managing it. The thing that worries Steve is that – as always – there's no sarcasm in his voice. He means what he's saying.

But even more immediate is the issue of the murder investigation. No one talked to Danno about his falsified death at the hospital. To begin with, they'd been too concerned for his health to bring up the incident at all. And then, once they realised he had no idea Lowe had faked his death, the idea of dropping the potential guilt and empathetic pain on him while he was still fighting off the morphine and dehydration had been inconceivable.

"I was going to tell you about it this morning," says Steve, resting his elbows on his legs, "but when I got there, you'd been released."

Danno turns. There's no anger on his face, just distress. "Then tell me now. I'm sick of all this top-toeing And the papers are worse – they just hint with no facts. 'HPD under investigation for assault,' 'McGarrett cautioned by the Governor'…" Danno clenches his fists briefly, winces, and crosses his arms instead. For an instant, Steve can see the young man Danno was when he joined Five-O, so eager to please and simultaneously so concerned not to reflect badly on the unit. That intrinsic need to protect his unit's reputation has never disappeared; he's just learned how to represent Five-O without having to worry about it.

Steve sits up, and is careful to speak unequivocally. "First off, no one's under investigation, and no one's been cautioned or reprimanded. Not everything was handled as smoothly as it could have been, but no one did anything outside the boundaries of defensible action. There will be no lasting repercussions of this incident." At least, not formally. Steve waits to see that Danno's understood, before taking a deep breath and continuing.

"As to what happened… Around 6:30 on Friday night, I said goodbye to you in the parking lot. A couple of minutes later, your car exploded. We learned later that Lowe must have jumped you in the lot and then set off the explosion remotely. At the time, all we knew was that your car exploded with someone in it, just after I'd seen you going to it." It hurts much less now, so much less. But it still hurts. Steve can't help the surge of relief when Danno lets out his breath in a low sigh and interrupts his line of thought.

"Who was in it?"

"We're still waiting on confirmation, but probably a homeless man who lived in the alley beside Lowe's building. We need to get a full name for him before we can match the dentals, if there are any. Odds are we'll never get a formal ID."

Danno shakes his head. "Ha – Lowe never even mentioned him. He hated you so much it scared me, but he never even talked about anyone other than you, me and his brother. It was like the three of us were the only things that existed."

"We got his medical records with a subpoena – Lowe saw a therapist for a while a few years back. She flagged a tendency for fixation and the possibility of violent escalation. But when the parents died, the brother couldn't afford her fees, and Lowe dropped off the radar."

Danno rubs his arms, scratching softly at the bandages beneath his sleeves. "So Matthew did the only thing he could think of to keep his brother out of trouble – moved in with him and kept an eye on him himself. And when it got to be too much he got into morphine. Poor guy."

This, they had talked about at the hospital. The wheels of justice don't slow for a cop with mild dehydration and bust-up wrists; Danno had been asked for and given his statement from his bed the day before. Afterwards, he got a short run-down on Lowe's motives, although not his actions.

Danno re-seats himself, and looks to Steve to continue. Steve shrugs.

"There's not a lot to tell, Danno. The investigation stalled – we didn't have any clues, and no one knew anything. Then that boy showed up. If he hadn't…" It's a lingering void he's been avoiding, and he tries to side-step it now without full success.

"You'd have found me," says Danno, with absolute confidence. Steve smiles sadly.

"I hope so – we sure as hell wouldn't have given up. We did get the report back on the body that proved it couldn't have been you, just as we were leaving for Lowe's address. It backed up the kid's story and really got us in gear. The rest you know."

Danno picks up his glass, but puts it down again without drinking. Whether his restlessness comes from days of lying in a bed, or the morphine, or both, Steve doesn't know. His hands are trembling slightly, and he looks down at them. "It must've been really tough for you guys. I'm sorry, I –"

"There's nothing to apologize for," breaks in Steve immediately, so intensely that Danno looks up. Steve continues more evenly, but with the same intensity. "You were attacked, held captive against your will, and still managed to lead us to you. You've done absolutely nothing to be sorry about – or ashamed of," he adds, as a burst of insight strikes him.

Danno blinks, then shakes his head and laughs. "Ashamed? Steve, I was jumped in my own parking lot by a shut-in I had 20 pounds on – not to mention my gun – couldn't break out of his pathetic holding cell even though he let me come up for air, and then almost got dragged off a damn cliff along with him in front of half the Force. What the hell kind of cop does that make me?" He stands, arms spread wide in demand. Steve looks up but doesn't stand, trying to remain a calming presence.

"One of the most brave and resourceful ones I know," he answers, earnestly. "I mean it, Danno. You kept your head, even when he was trying to keep you from thinking, and you found a way to get yourself out of there. That, and the fact that they're glad you're back, is all anyone's going to think."

"You weren't there, you didn't see him. He was practically breaking up, a total basket-case, and I still couldn't get away on my own."

"You and I both know it's not rational men who are the most dangerous. It's the ones you can't predict, can't influence, can't control. And Lowe was a gold medalist in all three categories." Steve sees Danno open his mouth to reply, and turns up the heat a bit. "And if we're trying to play the blame game here, Danno, why not take some shots at me?"

Danno pauses, and Steve charges on, determined to derail Danno's self-shaming. "I was the one who didn't order the tests run on the body immediately; I was the one who couldn't find you, I was the one who was almost too late. It's my fault you were kept there as long as you were, my fault you were drugged and injured, my fault you almost went over that cliff."

"That's not –"

"You're worried about perception, Danno, but I made genuine mistakes that could have cost you your life. Because I was too pig-headed to give up the case, and too hurt to handle it."

"But it was you who figured out where I was," says Danno, quietly. "Ben told me. Said you took off like a bat out of hell, even though you had no evidence. If you'd waited for an APB to find the car, we'd have both been on the rocks."

"And if I'd been wrong? If he'd taken you somewhere else, and I wasted 20 minutes getting out to Diamond Head?" The magnitude of that possible mistake haunts him now. What haunts him even more is the fact that he was so sure he was right that he didn't even recognize it at the time.

"But he didn't. No one else would've found us in time."

"And no one else would've made sure I did. Double-edged sword, Danno. You blame yourself, you blame me." He does stand now, walks over to drop a careful hand on Danno's shoulder. "If it had been anyone else – if it had been Chin – and we'd just got him back, what would you think? He hadn't tried hard enough to escape? He'd been a klutz to let someone grab him?"

Danno shakes his head, slightly ashamed by his guilt. "No. You're right. I'd just be glad he was back. And…"

Steve raises an eyebrow. "And?"

Danno looks up, and the flash of intensity in his eyes sends Steve slightly off balance. "And I'd be mad as hell with whoever grabbed him. Steve –" there's a questioning in his voice that makes Steve smile, darkly.

"I didn't push him, Danno."

Danno's eyes widen, and Steve kicks himself. Because that's Danny Williams too. No opinion of himself, and no room for doubting Steve McGarrett.

"Of course you didn't," Danno says, stung, and Steve isn't sure whether he should be thankful Danno was too out of it to see him almost take the shot. Faith in a commander is essential, but absolute faith is just dangerous. "I meant… I guess… you guys were okay, right? No one did anything stupid, did they?"

Steve can't help but smile, especially since the only other alternative to joking would be to tear strips out of himself. "Where to begin, Danno? Where to begin? But no, we didn't completely ruin our good name. Mostly thanks to Chin." He tries to start a laugh, but Danno doesn't buy in.

"And you?" Danno breaks free of Steve's arm and turns to stand in the breeze from the balcony. "It's a dangerous job, Steve. If I died, I wouldn't want to think… I'd want you to be okay."

For a moment, Steve stands, too off-balance to answer. And then, too used to its recent freedom, his heart twists loose and answers before rationality can clamp down on it.

"Well, that's a monumental load of crap, Danno."

Danno's staring at him like he's gone mad, but he doesn't stop – can't stop. It feels like there's a steel ball in his throat, like all the fear and pain and guilt from the past few days has been compressed like coal by the pressure of his emotions, ready to choke him.

"I wouldn't be okay – how could I be? You're my second in command, and you're the closest thing to a brother I have. Losing you – I don't even want to talk about it." He picks up Danno's glass and takes a deep drink, trying to erode the lump in his throat. "If you want to know if I can survive it, Danno, then yes. I think I can. But that's just about all you can ask of me, so don't go throwing your life on the line for nothing."

"Steve…" Danno's staring at him like he's been shot in the gut, eyes wide and face too pale. Steve lets out his breath in a deep sigh, and runs a hand over his face. When he looks back, Danno's trying to cover his shock. Steve puts the glass down, and lets his frame loosen.

"Buck up, Danno. We pulled through. It's enough for now. If you want more time, or need to talk, the option's open. I'm there when you need me. Same's true of the rest of Five-O."

Danno gives a faint smile, still slightly spooked, and nods. "Sure, I know. And I'll remember it," he adds, and Steve knows he's not just talking about the offer of vacation days.

They stand there for a moment, listening to the traffic down below, before Steve remembers the weight in his jacket pocket, and clears his throat self-consciously. "We were supposed to have a party today, but Jenny thought we should postpone for a couple of days. Alcohol's probably not cleared by the Doc."

Danno shakes his head. "Definitely not. He was pretty emphatic about it."

"Imagine that." Steve grins briefly, sees the answering grin from his detective, and continues, "So we'll have it when you get back. But I wanted to drop this off for now. I know it's not exactly what you wanted; if you don't want it, you can just toss it." He pulls out a small, unwrapped box and hands it over. Danno takes it with a surprised look, turning it to feel the weight and nature of the contents. "Happy birthday," he adds.

The look Danno gives him makes it apparent he hadn't realised what day it is. Not entirely surprising; with all the morphine, he'd be lucky to know what day of the week it is without someone having told him. He opens the box slowly, and stares down at the contents.

"I had the battery replaced, and the mechanism cleaned. They said it'll be good for another couple of decades. But if you don't want it, that's fine."

"No," says Danno, immediately, and pulls out his old watch. It looks new after the professional cleaning, and glints in his hand. "You're right. It keeps good time. And you know how often –" he pulls up short of finishing, glancing up at Steve, who can feel the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

"Déjà vu?" he asks lightly.

"Yeah. Well. You know what I was going to say. Thanks a lot. Really."

Steve presses his shoulder, and feels the tension slip out of Danno. "You're welcome. Now how 'bout we investigate the contents of your refrigerator? I could eat a horse." He's surprised to find he means it.

Danno laughs, and follows him into the kitchen. And Steve knows that, when he plays over the last week in his mind, this will make everything worth it.

END


End file.
